Chapter 4
Elena.
“Elena, you’ve read that same line four times now.” Camille tapped the edge of my desk. “Are you sure you’re ready for client-facing work already?”
“I’m ready.” I straightened the report in front of me and forced my eyes back to the numbers. “Just tired. You know, with the moving, new commute, all of it.”
“Mm.” She didn’t look convinced, but she let it go.
A week had passed since I drove out of Hollowmere, and Duskridge had already become the only thing keeping me busy enough to forget everything.
I’d taken a temp desk at a mid-sized firm three blocks from my new apartment. They didn’t care whose mate I used to be, only whether I could do my work.
My phone buzzed against the desk, screen lighting up with Ronan’s name for the third time that hour. I ignored it, trying to focus on what I was doing.
The screen lit up again almost immediately.
Ronan: Answer me.
Ronan: You don’t get to disappear like some sulking child.
Ronan: I came home to an empty den and divorce papers on the counter. Have you completely lost your mind?
Ronan: You were never strong enough for this life. I should have listened to my mother from the beginning.
I took a shaky breath, before facing the phone down harshly.
Camille glanced over but said nothing, already halfway back to her own office.
I felt him before the fourth call even came through, a sharp tug low under my ribs, which meant he was reaching hard through the bond instead of just dialing a number. Why couldn’t he just accept my rejection and mark Vivian?
My wolf pressed against my chest from the inside, some old instinct wanting to answer him even as the rest of me refused.
I pushed the feeling down and kept typing, forcing my attention back onto a column of figures that no longer made any sense to me.
By the time I got home that evening, my phone had six missed calls from Ronan and four texts I hadn’t opened.
I sat on the edge of my bed in the hotel I’d been staying.
He’d found the den empty. I didn’t need to read the texts to know that. I could feel it in the way the bond kept clawing for my attention, frantic in a way it hadn’t been in months.
I didn’t answer.
He called again at nine, then again at nine fifteen, and each time I watched his name light up my screen and let it ring out into silence, my thumb hovering over the reject button until the call ended on its own.
My phone buzzed with a voicemail notification. I didn’t listen to it.
Nora called an hour later.
“He’s blowing up your phone, isn’t he?” she said without a hello. “Margot called me too, asking if I know where you are. I told her to lose my number.”
“He’s called six times tonight.”
“Are you going to talk to him?”
“No.” I pressed the heel of my hand against my sternum. “If I hear his voice right now, I don’t trust myself not to go soft.”
“Good. Don’t go soft.” Nora’s voice sharpened. “You didn’t come this far to fold the second he sounds sad on the phone.”
“I know.”
“There’s something else.” She hesitated, and I knew it wasn’t going to be good. “One of my contacts in Hollowmere says Ronan went to the Beta council today. He’s telling them you’re temporarily unsettled, Elena, not that you rejected him.”
My stomach dropped straight through the floor. “He can’t just decide that on his own.”
“Apparently under pack law he can, at least for now. A private rejection from your side doesn’t mean anything official unless the council recognizes it. Until then, he gets to control the story.”
“So the bond just remains, whether I want it to or not.”
“For now.” Nora’s voice softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you, I thought they’d notify you. Fucking bitches.”
“I need to end this properly, then, something official.”
“Then we find a way to make it official. I promise you that.”
We hung up, and I sat there for a long moment, deciding exactly what I wanted to say and how few words it would take to say it.
I opened a new message to his number and typed slowly.
Elena: I’ve signed the divorce papers. There’s nothing else to talk about. I wish you and Vivian all the happiness in the world.
I read it twice, then hit send before the ache under my ribs could talk me out of it.
I opened my contacts, found his name, and blocked the number before he could even reply.
Blocking a number silenced his voice. It did nothing at all to the thing still tethered under my ribs, the thing pack law said only a Beta council could ever fully cut, and Ronan had just made sure that council believed there was nothing to cut yet. My wolf whimpered again, then went quiet.
The next morning, Camille stopped beside my desk again, this time frowning slightly as she studied me.
“You smell different today.” She said, then caught herself, laughing it off quickly. “Sorry, that’s a strange thing to say to a coworker. Ignore me.”
“No, it’s fine.” I forced a smile. “Rough week, I guess.”
She didn’t push, but her eyes lingered a second too long before she walked away, and I understood, watching her go, that whatever was happening to the bond wasn’t staying as private as I needed it to be.
I was still at my desk when an email notification lit up my screen, from an address I didn’t recognize, subject line three words long.
Regarding your rental.
I hadn’t listed anything anywhere yet. Nora hadn’t even sent me the agent’s number until that morning.
My stomach turned over as I opened it, already certain, somehow, that whatever waited inside that email had someone’s fingerprints all over it.